Java Archive

Even if Sun prefers to retain control over a stragic asset like Java, it should take a hard look at the components of Java that are related to platform-breadth and market-reach rather than to profitability, and slough these off to small, reactive Open Source efforts. javax.swing.text.html would be a good component to start the experiment with, says Rick Jelliffe. Check out the comments on that page too.

Can you write Java code that compiles across several platforms but still performs as fast as native code? This is a problem that has vexed Java developers, particularly when it comes to applications with complex UIs. This article proposes an interesting solution to this problem. You'll learn how to use JNI to access SLIK, a cross-platform C API that offers native performance on both Windows and UNIX. The JNI APIs demonstrated in this article will help you write skinned GUIs that run under both Linux and Windows with no code changes.

SwingWT uses Eclipse's SWT to offer native host-widgets for Java applications. Screenshot.

Sun Microsystems Inc is open to relinquishing stewardship of Java to a neutral third party, but is apparently against releasing the language to open source under GPL.

JNode just released a new version, 1.6. Some of the new features are listed below:

A new version of Kaffe has been released. Kaffe is a free software runtime environment for programs written in Java. Among many bug fixes, and code cleanups, the new release added support for policy files, and improved posix threads, crypto, SSL and sound support.

In response to an open letter from IBM asking Sun to join the company in developing an open-source version of Java, Sun plans to meet with IBM to discuss the issue, Sun sources said. Sun officials planned to meet with IBM as early as Thursday to discuss the merits of whether the company should work with IBM on an independent project to create an open-source implementation of Java.

JSR 133, which has been active for nearly three years, has recently issued its public recommendation on what to do about the Java Memory Model (JMM). Several serious flaws were found in the original JMM, resulting in some surprisingly difficult semantics for concepts that were supposed to be simple, like volatile, final, and synchronized. In this installment of Java theory and practice, the author shows how the semantics of volatile and final will be strengthened in order to fix the JMM. Some of these changes have already been integrated in JDK 1.4; others are slated for inclusion in JDK 1.5. On other Java news, IBM urges Sun to make Java open source.

An application model is analogous to a construction project blueprint, and is an important ingredient in application development. This article shows the steps for developing a Java application based on a Rational Rose class diagram using the Eclipse Modeling Framework, and also shows how to develop the same Java application using the Universal Modeling Language visualization tool.

Java is a great technology for servers, personal computers, and mobile devices. Java is successful on servers and mobile devices because these environments need Java's cross-platform support. The situation is different on personal computers, but this could change sooner than you might think. In this article, Andrei analyzes how Java can improve the desktop world and then present the three major Java GUI toolkits: AWT, Swing, and SWT.

New to Java? If you've gotten past the "Hello World" stage, this chapter from "Just Java 2" will help you understand Java application structure, the runtime internals (stack and heap), and the class "object."

Java 2 SDK v1.5 Beta 1 has been released. Release notes here.

Java steward Sun Microsystems has sent a letter to members of Eclipse, urging the increasingly influential open-source project to unify rather than fragment the Java-based development tool market.

Eclipse, an increasingly influential open-source development tools project, will kick off its first programmer conference next week amid strong industry momentum and lingering questions regarding its future direction. Elsewhere, learn how an application in Java SWING can invoke and display a Windows Form, pass parameters to the form and wait for a return value when the form is closed. This type of technique shows how organizations can introduce new forms and controls based on Windows Forms into an existing Java SWING environment and helping them to rapidly deploy .NET applications without having to rip out existing infrastructure or wait until new replacement applications are written.